I love you completely, way I have never loved someone. no matter how far, or how long, you make me smile and you make me happy. just by being who you are. even now, I am a little drunk on you. I celebrate you. and thus I celebrate me and I celebrate my life. I celebrate us. wish there was somewhere, somehow I could scream this into the wind and have it reach you. where ever you are now.

somehow knowing that you are there, always, makes me feel like I make sense after all. I miss my best friend. and all this will get better. I look forward to being by myself for the summer …after this fades and I stop looking for you around the house.

one should never turn down an impromptu invite to go camp out in some mountains. what ever i was going to be doing before, I certainly wasn’t doing it anymore.

sometimes I forget how much I love touring in them big mountains. how much I love being so far out and up over there that afterwards I feel like I got run over by a freight train or like I got punched in the face. skiing to my hearts content until I feel wrecked. hoo, spring time in the tobacco roots. cooking my face in the microwave of the snowy bowls with my head down in the blinding, shiny whiteness, staring at my skis all day.

on the hike in I tried out mushroom tea for a change. tsk, just a little bit. the sun went down and we came up the final hill when I fell behind in the dark woods. the gooey giddy feeling creeping in, staring at the starts, the snow and the pitch black forest, trying to remember to keep going. star shine. I had no idea where I put my head lamp and the thought of searching for it seemed daunting. I might never make it if I stopped… hunting by sounds in the dark forest. har har.

the whole night and the weekend was magical. camping in the snow. i like it.

that was awesome.

I set my alarm for 6. woke up to rain and kept sleeping. when I woke up again I laid around watching big flakes coming down. more like clumps of snow. after kicking rocks around the house for a bit I finally decided to give it a go and headed up to the hill in a trenching snow storm.

being in a blizzard doesn’t usually bother me much. you can really be comfortable as long as you are dressed for it. sun, rain, snow or wind. what ever. it seems to drive most people away tho and I think there may have been a total of 5 people on the mountain. I really enjoyed my quiet skin up in the falling snow and breaking my own trail. got up into a white out and skied some sweet powder in one of those vertigo environments, making best guesses about the angle of the slope. nice.

sometimes I don’t get this town. it snows every may. like clock work and people are just as upset about it every year. just because I have gone on bike rides or worn flip flops and tank tops this spring doesn’t stop me from skiing again when it snows. or even if it doesn’t. everyone I know is making statements and declarations about being done skiing for the season and putting their skis away.

Eli told me last night he’d much rather be skiing than mountain biking because he feels like the reward to effort ratio isn’t always there in mountains biking. I agree, much like him, I would give up any day pedaling up a dirt hill on my bike to skinning up a snowy hill. as much I enjoy mountain biking, I tend to not bring my bike out until later in the season. I have some principles against mountain biking in snow with soggy sneakers and wet cold fingers (unless it’s fall). frankly, in this town, unless you drive an hour out of town, mountain biking this early means getting on trails with kids and families and disabled people. do you really want to be that person? on the M trail?

Moose found me a set of antlers from a deer skull dug in the snow. a set! haha, good boy.

so I bought a geared bike. the flat valleys out here finally made me make the switch. when I bought the bike at the bike swap I didn’t really have a good idea of what I was buying. all I knew is that it fit, it was in sweet condition and it was about what I wanted to spend. out of principle, I aim to never be someone who spends a couple grand on a road bike and spandex. there’s a lot of that out here. so almost out of same principle, now that I have gears, I also do long road rides in my cut off jean shorts. or my chacos. or both. what of it.

I happened to be at the swap early and had several people try to buy it from me before I made it out of the place. since then I’ve had random folks walk up to compliment my bike, most of them in disbelief that I picked it up at the swap. what I have learned so far is that apparently there were only about 3500 of them ever made, some regard it a collectible. the Bridgestone Synergy RB 1 was built for racing around 1992-93. this weekend I took it out for a 20 miler and another 30 miler. holy shit that thing goes fast! it’s got a massive chain ring in the front that enables me to get going amazingly fast. and keep accelerating when I work it up to a speed to ride in the highest gear. it’s amazing!

I never thought I’d be someone who’s into road riding, but somehow after years of bike commuting in Portland, I really miss being on a bike. it’s one of those basic simple joys. like, getting on a good swing every once in a while… I miss the tall swing sets in portland. just to go fast, ride so hard I think I’m gonna puke. like I used to in portland traffic, where I used to regard biking as something of a video game. when I lived there I used to have friends who wanted to go on road adventures, but I was never really that interested. largely just because I spent the whole week on a bike. while I always loved it, the last thing I wanted to do on the weekend then, was to get on a bike.

but when I moved here, I realized I was missing being able to go somewhere on my bike. it’s an odd thing to miss, odd thing to notice. biking used to be a necessary utility, not recreation. the adjustment to bozeman is in order to do a good ride, I need to ride out of town. I also know that I have always loved my time on the bike. when I was going to school and working full time, those miles were my time of serenity and without those I think I would have been going mad most of the time.

there’s a lot of good road out here. I never thought I’d say that. so, to make up for this atrocity I’ll continue riding in jeans amongst the sea of spandex. and 60 year old men.

I also spent a couple days skiing this weekend. saturday I went with Harriet and noticed that I have learned to fully understand her almost incomprehensible british accent. the ski was sweet, but this mornings was even better! we made it up early and timed our corn perfectly. the kinda run that makes you so stoked to ski… holy cow it was sweeet!

I love this time of year! I’m gonna go shovel some dirt.

as soon as I make the commitment for EMT classes for the spring and decide to start a garden, he gets a call from California, off to the Trinity forest in a month. he blames it on my sudden commitment. haha!

I find it funny, and guess maybe I am delighted to hear that he’s not worried about us. he used to be so concerned. it’s like he got to where he needed to be, so that we can both let go and live on.

now I really gotta figure out that watering system for the garden. I thought I was going be bozeman bound for the summer this time around, but it looks like I will be going down to Shasta at some point this summer after all. freaking sweet!! and well, being apart for most of the summer really sucks, but I’ll see if I can get a renter into the house for a month or two in the summer so I can be gone for a while.

and ski some volcano after all..

how do you tell the man you love, that you love him? this has been established already. I love yous are a part of an everyday slogan. often several times a day. but something changed and I see him differently now.

as of late, I find myself thinking about James. or when I am not with him, but he comes up in conversation, I find myself feeling all warm in my innerds, cause he’s my guy. thinking of him, often makes me happy and makes me smile. I am a big fan of James. sometimes when we lay together in the morning or before he goes to work, I feel elated to feel his warmth and I am stoked that he chooses to be my guy. still. I find myself lost in thought thinking how great I think he is and how lucky I feel to have this kind of a relationship with someone. I have always felt like what James and I have was somehow different from anything I’ve ever had with anyone. though I have been very much in love in the past, I have never felt quite so .. understood..? like my raging ocean of emotion that turns to calm yet churning waters with him. it’s hard to explain. even though we are the same sign, James challenges me in ways that I really think I need to be challenged.

the longer I get to know James, the more I love him. I didn’t know you could love someone the way I love him now. I’ve never made it this far with someone, or this way, to actually have a really good and wholesome relationship with someone where love can be cultivated. lately I have found myself wondering if a lifetime with him was enough time. haha!

because of all this sometimes I get scared. I find myself worrying that I might be alone in this relationship with this love of mine. this is the time in the relationship when the other knows your faults and shortcomings. this is when you got a bit tubby and don’t look as hot you did when you first met. and this is when it can be awesome and wonderful, but it’s also around the time when things turned to hate and resentment the last time. I know James is a world away from ex, and his steady, consistent love for me seems to never really falter too far. but still, my love somehow has now turned the corner to where I might break if I came to find out, if instead of growing that he’s love might be dying. it can happen and you can’t necessarily help these things. and this is what I am afraid of. ridiculously so, I might add. I find myself a little scared of being hurt again now that I find myself here.

not that this is a true worry, or an actionable concern, (–Kenny.) it’s more like just a clear view of the fact, that I find myself in this exceptionally vulnerable place again with someone. even though I had thought that I was over it, or had forgotten what it felt like to hurt, I found that feeling this way about someone also reminds me of big hurt by someone. at your most vulnerable state.

well …last time I obviously I trusted my emotional well-being in the hands of the wrong person. someone clearly not qualified for the job. how stupid of me.